August 24-30, 2025

Heart Preparation:

As you read this week’s passages, there is a lot of heaviness. Take a moment before you read each day to remind yourself of the goodness of God, and His holiness.


Weekly Reading:
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• Sunday, August 24: Jeremiah 51-52
• Monday, August 25: Lamentations 1:1-3:36
• Tuesday, August 26: Lamentations 3:37-5:22
• Wednesday, August 27: Ezekiel 1-4
• Thursday, August 28: Ezekiel 5-8
• Friday, August 29: Ezekiel 9-12
• Saturday, August 30: Ezekiel 13-15

What to Expect/What to Look For

Sunday, August 24: Jeremiah 51-52

Jeremiah 51: Throughout Jeremiah, God has been warning Judah to repent, to turn back to Him. Yet, Judah has refused to do so. Because of this, God has promised that Judah (and her capital, Jerusalem), would fall, and He has made known that it would be by the Babylonians. Even though the Babylonians are the vessel of God’s judgement against Judah, they are not innocent in this. In Jeremiah 51, God is telling Judah that even though they are going into judgement by Babylon, that God has not utterly forsaken Judah or Israel, and that judgement will fall upon the nation of Babylon, by the hand of the Medo-Persian Empire (which doesn’t come to a world power for another 50 years) for what they have done to Judah.

Jeremiah 52: Jeremiah is recounting, similar to 2 Kings 24:18-25:30, the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian empire. This is the result of the entire prophecy of Jeremiah, the fulfillment of his warning to the people of Judah. For three years, Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem, and finally on August 17, 586 BC, he defeated Jerusalem and burned the temple, taking the people of Judah and Jerusalem into exile. The chapter ends with the release of Jehoiachin, which served to give hope to the people that the future blessings that God promised would come true, just as the future judgement that He promised came true.

Monday, August 25: Lamentations 1:1-3:36

Jeremiah was a prophet who lived before the destruction of the temple, and he continued to live after the destruction of the temple. He witnessed the downfall of his people. He witnessed the atrocities that happened to his people by the hands of the Babylonians. Upon seeing all of this, he writes Lamentations, a lament for his beloved city and people. Lamentations is a heavy read, full of sorrow and heartache, as Jeremiah (and us) sees the weight and the consequences of our sins.
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In reading Lamentations, you may look back over and read Deuteronomy 28 real quick. This chapter is where God promises faithfulness and blessing to the people of Israel if they are faithful to Him, but if they disobey, curses will fall upon them. Jeremiah references Deuteronomy frequently, seeing the faithfulness of God to His promise of curses if they are disobedient to Him. The references in Deuteronomy that Jeremiah makes in Lamentations are:

Lamentations 1:3 “she dwells now among the nations”





Lamentations 1:5 “her foes have become the head”


Lamentations 1:5 “her children have gone away, captives before the foe




Lamentations 1:6 “they fled without strength before the pursuer





Lamentations 1:18 “my young women and my young men have gone into captivity


Lamentations 2:15 “all who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem

Lamentations 2:20 "Look, O LORD, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care?



​Lamentations 2:21 “In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old”

Deuteronomy 28:65 “And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.”

Deuteronomy 28:44 “He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.”

Deuteronomy 28:32 “Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless.”

Deuteronomy 28:25 “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 28:41 “You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.”

Deuteronomy 28:37 “And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.”

Deuteronomy 28:53 “And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.
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Deuteronomy 28:50 “a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.”

In this reading, you will also see the most beautiful aspect of Lamentations, a hope in God and His goodness in the midst of all the suffering.

Lamentations 3:21-24 → 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Even though Judah is suffering the curses of Deuteronomy 28, the same covenant promised restoration for obedience and repentance. Deuteronomy 30:1-10 is the hope that Jeremiah is thinking of.

Tuesday, August 26: Lamentations 3:37-5:22
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In today’s reading, you are going to continue to see the heartache that comes due to the sin of the people. It can be possible that as you read this, you think that God is being unjust, or going too far. It is important to remember that God is holy, and good, and perfectly just, and if we think He has gone too far, we don’t fully comprehend the weight of sin and the consequences that it deserves. More references from Deuteronomy are:

​Lamentations 4:10 The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children;










Lamentations 5:1 “Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to foreigners”



Lamentations 5:5 “We are weary; we are given no rest”





Lamentations 5:10 “Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine





Lamentations 5:11 “Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah”




Lamentations 5:12 “no respect is shown to the elders”


​Lamentations 5:18 “for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.”

Deuteronomy 28:56-57 “The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns. ”

Deuteronomy 28:30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit.”

Deuteronomy 28:65 “And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul.”

Deuteronomy 28:48 “therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.”

Deuteronomy 28:30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall ravish her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit.”

Deuteronomy 28:50 “a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.”
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Deuteronomy 28:56 “The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter,”

Wednesday, August 27: Ezekiel 1-4

Ezekiel was a prophet who prophesied after the fall of Jerusalem. His prophecy began in 597 BC (Jerusalem fell in 586 BC), but Ezekiel was taken into exile by Babylon in the second deportation in 597 BC. So technically all of Jerusalem was not exiled yet, but Ezekiel wrote from exile in Babylon. Ezekiel’s message starts out with a warning of judgement upon the people of Judah for their sins. Ezekiel calls out the leaders, the priests, and the people. Every one of them is guilty of turning against God. The first four chapters of Ezekiel are the call of Ezekiel, in which he sees the throne of God, receives the calling, and is warned that he is to speak the words that God gives him to the people. Ezekiel was also called to live out his prophecy as a symbol in various ways, initially by laying down on his side for 430 days to represent the punishment that came upon the nation of Israel as well as the coming judgement of Judah.

Thursday, August 28: Ezekiel 5-8

Starting in Ezekiel 5, you will start to see the repeated phrase I am the Lord. This is important to remember. All the things that are coming upon the people are because they failed to honor God as Lord. They went after other gods. They served idols. They sacrificed their sons. They are completely guilty before God. Ezekiel is reminding the people exactly why they are suffering this judgement, because they committed offense against the Lord. Not man. Not king. But the Lord of heaven and earth.

Friday, August 29: Ezekiel 9-12

God continues to pronounce judgement upon the leaders and the people for their sin. There is also a heartbreaking section in chapter 10, in which the glory of God leaves the temple. This has been His place of dwelling among them. Since the Exodus, God has resided among His people. Yet they have continually rejected God, and so now He has removed His presence from them. Yet, even among this heartache, God reveals in chapter 11 that He is going to make a new covenant with the people, one in which He will put His Spirit within them, and He will yet again be their God.

Saturday, August 30: Ezekiel 13-15

These chapters are yet again more pronouncements of judgement upon the people for their sin. Though this may seem repetitive, it shows yet again the consequences and the weight of our sin. All of these judgements are the very judgements that we deserve, yet God sent His only Son, that if we believe in Him, we won’t suffer this judgement, but instead be eternally with Him in ultimate bliss.

Personal InsightWow. There is so much here. I feel like one thing that popped out to me is my own inclination to downplay sin. Through reading these passages, they all show the judgement of Judah because of her sin. I can read it and see the terrible things that come upon the people, and think God, that seems a bit extreme. Yet, as Paul states in Romans 3, there is no one who does good, we are all sinners and fallen short of the glory of God. The question we should be asking isn’t why did this have to happen to them, but rather why doesn’t this happen to me? That question then points me to the goodness of God, in which He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for me, so that I might become the righteousness of God. He sent His Son to be the ultimate sacrifice, to be forsaken by God on the cross so that I can be adopted in eternally. When we read these passages, we see the true love of God that brought us in, deserving of the exact thing they went through, yet receiving complete grace in that He does not hold our sins against us, but makes us completely clean.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old (sinful self) is gone, the new (Christ’s righteousness) has come. — 2 Corinthians 5:17

Prayer

God, thank you for your grace! Thank you for forgiving a sinner like me. I am deserving of eternal hell, yet you sent your son to go through hell on earth, so that I could have eternal life. Thank you for that gift and sacrifice. Help me see the weight of my sin. Help me hate what is responsible for the death of your son, so that I can live holy for you. Amen.

This week's devotion was prepared by Andrew Peterman